


I'll give a bouquet to these unending days

by sparksandsalt



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Post-Time Skip, it's mutual we just don't see bokuto's pining that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24313864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparksandsalt/pseuds/sparksandsalt
Summary: Even so, there is a compartment of his heart where he stashes away the memories he cannot bear to inspect for too long, for fear that his mind, as always, will calculate the very worst outcome.  On one shelf: the gray hair he found at his temple a few days ago.  In a deeper alcove: the startled look on his grandmother’s face when she had forgotten his name for a moment too long when he last visited her.In a hidden room, maybe even a full annex shut away from the rest of his heart: Keiji’s entire sixteenth year, when a boy with incandescent eyes told him that they were the protagonists of the world, and Keiji had believed it.Akaashi attends the MSBY Black Jackals - Schweiden Adlers game without informing anyone (other than his long-suffering invitee Tenma Udai)
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 99
Kudos: 895
Collections: My favorite haikyuu fics





	I'll give a bouquet to these unending days

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Gray and Blue" by Kenshi Yonezu ft. Masaki Suda
> 
> (Komi swears once and people ambiguously try to take Akaashi home with them but otherwise G-rated)

Because one of the manga artists that Keiji is responsible for refuses to resolve the romantic subplot she began in the third chapter of her series, Keiji decides to attend the Schweiden Adlers - MSBY Black Jackals game in Sendai.

Because he is a coward at heart, Keiji forces Tenma Udai to accompany him.

“Your underclassmen from Karasuno will be playing against each other, Udai-sensei,” Keiji says as he purchases two tickets to the V-League match from his laptop. “Additionally, it’s an opportunity to visit your home prefecture.”

Udai’s voice sounds sleepy and disoriented from the speaker of Keiji’s cell phone. “I mean—I guess—?”

“And because Zombie Knight Zom’bish will reach its final arc soon, I believe it would be beneficial to begin research for your next series,” Keiji continues. He clicks to confirm a two-seat round trip between Tokyo and Sendai.

Keiji hears paper rustling over the line as Udai scrambles. “Akaashi-san, the end of my series is still a year off—wait, did my editor say that I should do a sports manga next—?”

“I have purchased our train seats and our tickets to the match.”

“Please wait, Akaashi-san, I have to send in my manuscript draft by tomorrow afternoon—”

“I have heard from my colleagues that you always submit your drafts in a timely manner. Thank you for your hard work, Udai-sensei. I will meet you outside your apartment at 2:00 pm.”

Keiji hears Udai make a soft, despairing noise away from the mouthpiece before he leans back in to speak. “I’m flattered to be invited, but aren’t there Fukurodani grads you could bring along instead? I’m sure one of them would be better suited to support Bokuto-san with you.”

Keiji pauses. He _had_ been invited to a sports bar to watch the game with his old teammates, any of whom would be thrilled to attend in-person instead. If he plies her with enough promises of dinner, he thinks he might even be able to convince Shirofuku to take a day trip to Sendai—in Chiba, she’s even closer to Miyagi than Keiji.

“I’m going because I’d like to support _Hinata and Kageyama_ , Udai-sensei,” Keiji says.

-

Keiji is twenty-two, turning twenty-three in a matter of weeks. He is an adult with a job he had not wanted but carries out properly. He is an adult with houseplants he keeps alive. He is an adult with a credit card that he can misuse to buy luxuries like last-minute tickets to sporting events.

In his teenage years, he had been _negative_ ; now, as an adult, he has evolved to _cautious_ and _realistic_ and _analytical_. Keiji’s mind still conjures up dozens of scenarios at any given moment, each of which proliferates into a hundred possible futures—but now he has learned that he does not have to default to the worst case scenario, though that remains his natural inclination.

Keiji is twenty-two. He is an adult. He knows the difference between the likeliest result and the one he fears most.

Even so, there is a compartment of his heart where he stashes away the memories he cannot bear to inspect for too long, for fear that his mind, as always, will calculate the very worst outcome. On one shelf: the gray hair he found at his temple a few days ago. In a deeper alcove: the startled look on his grandmother’s face when she had forgotten his name for a moment too long when he last visited her.

In a hidden room, maybe even a full annex shut away from the rest of his heart: Keiji’s entire sixteenth year, when a boy with incandescent eyes told him that they were the protagonists of the world, and Keiji had believed it.

-

Udai is waiting outside his apartment when Keiji arrives at 1:50 the next afternoon. The hollows under his eyes are even darker than Keiji’s, but Udai smiles and dips his head when he sees Keiji round the corner.

_I’m sorry_ , Keiji thinks.

“Thank you for your hard work,” Keiji says, bowing back.

-

_“I just sent you my edits for this week’s manuscript draft, but again, the subplot with Elizabeth-san—”_

_“Why are you always so invested in their relationship, Akaashi-san?”_ Aoki-sensei had laughed over the phone. Keiji could hear her typing on her keyboard as she spoke. _“It’s inconsequential to the battle in this chapter. I never imagined that you’d be such a big romance fan.”_

_“It’s been eighty-two chapters, and there hasn’t been much progress. I feel sorry for her.”_

_“They’re only sixteen, love isn’t so urgent when you’re that young and have other priorities,”_ Aoki-sensei had replied. _“Ah, I’ve received your email. Thank you for your hard work, Akaashi-san.”_

_“Thank you for your hard work,"_ Keiji repeated back.

-

On the train, Keiji and Udai discuss the well-tread topics from the handful of times they’ve met before: Udai’s editor, Keiji’s manga artists, the state of Weekly Shonen Vie, high school volleyball, professional volleyball.

Udai’s favorite Division 1 team is the Tachibana Red Falcons. Keiji’s is the MSBY Black Jackals.

“I could have guessed that,” Udai laughs. Keiji’s stomach lurches, and he feels his mind scramble for the worst possible interpretation of the laughter—but no, Keiji is an adult. Most likely, there is nothing mean-spirited about Tenma Udai.

“Do you go to a lot of Black Jackals games?” Udai asks. He seems surprised when Keiji says no.

“I watch the televised matches, like everyone else,” Keiji replies.

“Then why today—?”

“Hinata’s debut,” Keiji lies. Shouyou Hinata is also a being with incandescent eyes, after all. Keiji watches Udai consider it, then nod. There are plenty of people, Keiji and Udai included, who can be persuaded to traverse prefectures for the chance to witness those eyes in-person.

“During university, I did manage to attend a few Black Jackals matches in Tokyo and Osaka, though,” Keiji adds. He surveys his hands, then stretches his fingers one by one. “And an EJP Raijin match too, for Washio-san. I enrolled at the same university as Fukurodani’s volleyball club managers, and we would travel to V-League games together. We’ve been too busy as of late to make those kinds of trips, unfortunately.”

When Keiji looks up from his hands, Udai is staring at him with his chin propped in his palm.

Oh. He had forgotten that Udai is a person who depicts human behavior for a living. Most likely, Udai has long since seen straight through Keiji’s feeble artifice and knows exactly what this troublesome invitation is for.

_I’m sorry,_ Keiji thinks again.

Udai sighs, then smiles.

“I’m enjoying the showdown in the recent chapters of Aoki-sensei’s manga,” Udai says.

“Don’t you think something should have happened with Elizabeth-san by now?”

“Huh? It’s a shonen manga, Akaashi-san. It’s fine if the love interest just shows up in the last chapter as the mother of the protagonist’s kid.”

-

When Shirofuku and Suzumeda graduated university, they bequeathed all their houseplants to Keiji: a snake plant in a terracotta pot, a golden pothos to hang in Keiji’s narrow, narrow kitchenette, and half a dozen succulents arranged on shelves and table corners until Keiji had found just the right light for them.

When Keiji graduated university, Shirofuku gifted him one more succulent: a lopsided Haworthia with its spears growing in two distinct, spiky tufts.

_“Thank you,"_ Keiji had said.

_“His name is Koutarou,”_ Shirofuku had said.

_“No, it’s not,”_ Keiji had said.

_“I know he looks a little eccentric, but you’re good at taking care of fussy things, Akaashi-kun,”_ Shirofuku had said. “ _Please cherish Koutarou.”_

-

The Haworthia still thrives on Keiji’s bedroom windowsill. After deliberation, Keiji had decided that it did not deserve a death sentence simply because he did not agree with the name Shirofuku had chosen for it.

-

They miss the announcements for the starting lineup, because of all the things that make Keiji fantasize about jumping on a bullet train to Osaka every night as he collapses into sleep, one of the few that exists outside of the armored compartment in his heart is Onigiri Miya.

“Akaashi-san, where do you think you’re going?” Udai groans helplessly. “The game’s already started, you know!”

“I’m going to get onigiri from Onigiri Miya. If I don’t hurry, they might be sold out.”

Udai’s face is in his hands now. “Don’t give me that ‘Well, of course’ look, I wouldn’t know.”

_I’m sorry,_ Keiji thinks again. “I will buy you some onigiri from Onigiri Miya. Then you’ll understand.”

Osamu Miya himself prepares Keiji’s order, eyes flicking up and down over him during their entire transaction. Recognition finally sparks as he puts Keiji in the context of the volleyball stadium, and his smile goes from flat and professional to a little conspiratorial. They both know what they’re about to relive.

_Time suspends itself strangely between two people whose lives only intersect once,_ Keiji thinks. _They are each a time capsule for the other._

Keiji is suddenly, acutely aware that in the Kamei Arena Sendai, he is much more “Fukurodani’s old setter” than “twenty-two-year-old-adult Keiji Akaashi”.

As he and Osamu Miya chuckle at Atsumu Miya’s fumbled serve, Keiji wonders if it’s possible to feel sixteen and nineteen and nearly twenty-three all at once.

-

Four months ago, outside the izakaya where the Weekly Shonen Vie staff held their quarterly drinking party, Miyashita from sales kissed Keiji as he helped her hail a taxi home.

It was nice, in the flattering way that pretty older women finding him worthy of kissing was always nice. It was also not nice, in the clumsy, sloppy way that drunk people kissing him was always not nice.

_“Wait_ ,” she had said, taking a wobbly step backward. “ _How old are you again?”_

_“Twenty-two,”_ he had replied.

Miyashita laughed apologetically. “ _Oh no. I’m sorry, Akaashi-kun. You’re pretty, but you’re the same age as my little brother—that’s too weird. I’m sorry.”_

_“It’s alright,”_ Keiji had said, not sure if he meant that it was alright that she would not take him home, or that it was alright if she still wanted to.

Miyashita was sharp, and had a noisy laugh when she was drunk, and confided that she had not wanted to be manga sales in the same way that Keiji had not wanted to be in manga editing. Her eyes were bright, but not incandescent. Keiji thought that bright eyes, at least for now, might be enough.

_“You’re still so, so young,”_ Miyashita had said. She closed her eyes when she smiled, and touched his jaw so kindly that Keiji thought he might begin to cry in the middle of the lamplit parking lot. “ _You don’t have to panic, Akaashi-kun. It’s okay to take your time.”_

-

Maybe the compartment in Keiji’s heart isn’t the fortress he imagines it to be. Maybe it’s one of the oysters he had watched the chef shuck in the izakaya that night: no matter how tightly closed it appears, if he slides a knife in at just the right angle, it would only take a twist of the wrist to snap it open entirely.

-

“Onigiri Miya _is_ good,” Udai admits once they find their seats and he finishes a salted kombu onigiri in three bites.

“You can taste every grain of rice,” Keiji agrees, selecting an umeboshi one. “Are you sure you don’t want to find your friends from Miyagi? I’m sure there must be a few here today.”

Udai unwraps a second onigiri for himself, this time tarako. “Akaashi-san, you’re the one who said that this was supposed to be a research trip. And it would suck for you to be the odd one out while I’m catching up with old friends. I’ll see them when I come back for New Years, anyway.”

Keiji had been right. There is not an unkind bone in Tenma Udai’s body. Keiji is about to apologize, out loud this time, when the crowd around them erupts into a coordinated clap. Keiji peers down at the court.

It’s Bokuto’s serve.

-

If he had been a protagonist of the world, Keiji and Onaga would not have been born in different years than the rest of the starting lineup when Fukurodani reached second at Nationals.

Or, maybe, Keiji and Onaga would have been born in the same year instead of one year apart, and Keiji wouldn’t have felt quite so lonesome as Fukurodani’s captain during his unremarkable senior year.

Or, maybe—no, Keiji has read enough books to know. He is certain that there is nothing that could’ve been done to have made his seventeenth year feel less like a forgotten, loose plot thread.

-

Keiji claps along. He laughs, irrepressible and fond. What else is he meant to do? It has been eight years since he was a middle schooler waffling between high schools, and the sight of Bokuto’s form in the air had crystallized his decision in an instant.

Why should he start trying to resist Bokuto now?

-

Keiji’s life had not proceeded in the simple, smooth way of novel protagonists. Sixteen year-old Keiji, whose mind systematically formulated every scenario that lay before him and believed the one that broke his heart the most, had known this well before it happened.

_Nothing can ever stay the same_ , his mind reminded him endlessly, especially at his most dazzling heights. Bokuto would flash his eyes toward him in the middle of a match, enthralled, as if his life before Keiji had simply been the prologue and now the story could begin--and just as Keiji would begin to believe that maybe, if Bokuto believed it, it might be true, Keiji’s mind would caution, _No, you only live brilliant years like this once_.

Bonds held together by schedule were infinitely more tenable than those held together by affection alone. Abruptly shifting from a life where he had seen Bokuto daily for two entire years, to one cobbled together with LINE messages and bullet trains--Keiji was not the protagonist of a novel, so he understood that sometimes precious things end.

There was no reason for a literature major in Tokyo to encounter a professional volleyball player in Osaka.

However, even though Bokuto dove into the world of professional volleyball the instant he graduated, it was not as if he never surfaced again. If Keiji looks through the seven year-old group chat and their personal messages, he would find a fairly regular pattern of birthday wishes, New Years greetings, congratulations for match victories, and heads-ups about Golden Week visits to Tokyo.

They follow each other on Twitter. Bokuto @’s him with questions about his teammates’ favorite Weekly Shonen Vie series. Keiji likes his photos of Hinata.

In Osaka, Bokuto sent them off from the train station with plastic bags full of Onigiri Miya for the ride back to Tokyo every time Suzumeda or Shirofuku could convince Keiji to abandon his studies and attend a Black Jackals home game.

None of it compares to the immediacy of a volleyball leaving Keiji’s hands and connecting with Bokuto’s.

-

**From: Akinori Konoha**

> [17:17] Yo Akaashi, you said you might be late but are you coming to the bar?
> 
> [17:17] We grabbed you a seat but it’s getting pretty crowded

**From: Keiji Akaashi**

> [17:19] I apologize for not updating you sooner, I am watching the match with one of my magazine’s mangaka

**From: Akinori Konoha**

> [17:19] No worries dude, have fun lol
> 
> [17:20] And ooh, new sports manga in the works? :eyes:
> 
> [17:20] Did you see Bokuto’s line shot though, can you believe we used to play with THAT

-

In September, Bokuto had slipped away from Jackals practice to watch Onaga’s first game as a starter for the Tamaden Elephants. The Jumbotron camera immediately found him cheering alongside the Fukurodani alumni because Bokuto _is_ one of the protagonists of the world, and as such, fate dictates that the camera will always find him.

After the game, his coach had chewed him out so loudly over the phone that Keiji caught every consonant from several meters away.

Bokuto still treated them all to yakiniku before he returned to Hirakata.

-

“Akaashi-san,” Udai remarks during a time-out, scrolling through the photos he had taken as references for his potential next manga, “The Black Jackals’ jerseys, black and gold and white--after all these years, Bokuto-san is still wearing Fukurodani’s colors, huh?”

-

After the Tamaden Elephants game, after the scolding over the phone, after the yakiniku and the beers and the milk tea with boba, Bokuto had said, “ _Akaashi, you should come back with me.”_

Keiji reached into his chest and held the oyster shell of his heart shut. He trained his eyes on his phone’s lit screen.

_“I can’t go to Osaka right now, Bokuto-san,”_ Keiji had replied patiently. “ _I have work in the morning.”_

_“Oh,”_ Bokuto had said, crinkling the plastic water bottle in his hands. Keiji had discovered over the years that sleepy, tipsy Bokuto was mellower than his normal self, but his voice still carried through the deserted train platform. Bokuto smelled like shochu highballs and the popping fruit boba he had pilfered from Suzumeda’s dessert bowl after complaining that he wanted more than just tapioca. “ _Can I manage on my own, d’you think?”_

_“I don’t know, Bokuto-san. Finish drinking your water and sleep a little on the train. I think you should be sober enough by the time you reach your stop.”_

_“Oh,”_ Bokuto had repeated.

The train platform fell quiet for a few long moments. Staring at his email app, Keiji wondered if Bokuto had fallen asleep.

Suddenly a weight, warm and clumsy, pressed against the back of Keiji’s head, right at the nape where hair met skin. Keiji’s restless hands on his phone froze.

A gentle squeeze, then another. The tip of a pinky accidentally sliding past the collar of his shirt. A thumb running down the vertebra, as if counting them.

The glow of Keiji’s phone blinked off on its timer.

_“I still wish you’d come back with me, though, I miss you,”_ Bokuto had said, incandescent eyes squinting as he smiled.

Keiji was not sure what he was feeling, but there was suddenly far too much of it.

He was _supposed_ to be an adult now. His sixteenth year was supposed to be a fond memory of his youth, not a bookmarked passage he returned to over and over and over again until the novel of his life would fall open to the page unbidden, its spine creased in that one place from so many pathetic revisitations.

Lights splashed over the side of Bokuto’s face as the train pulled into the station beyond; his nose cast a dark stripe of shadow across his other cheek. The desperate impulse to reach up and turn his face away from him--or to pull it much, much closer--rose from Keiji’s stomach and gathered at the back of his neck.

He should have let the succulent wither. He should have given up on Elizabeth-san’s fruitless plotline. He should have gone home with Miyashita from sales after all.

Instead, Keiji clasped his hands around his phone, stood from the bench, and said, “ _Please message me when you reach the dormitory to let me know that you’ve arrived safely, Bokuto-san.”_

And that was all.

-

There is a moment during the match when Keiji comprehends that between his time as a second-stringer at Fukurodani and his time as an ex-athlete—he has been a spectator to Bokuto far more times than he has ever played with Bokuto as his setter.

It does not make Keiji any less captivated by power behind Bokuto’s spikes, or any less proud of Bokuto’s obvious maturation. Watching Bokuto play in top form has always satisfied him. When Bokuto outmaneuvers his way through the exact play that had broken his teammates’ hearts at Spring Nationals, Keiji nearly blurts out to Udai, _He remembers, he hasn’t forgotten._

In his position as spectator, Keiji reminds himself: he had been a necessary plot device to lead the protagonist to this victory now, and that should be reward enough for a side character.

-

Keiji has always known that Bokuto’s eyes hide nothing. It had assured him at sixteen; it terrifies him at twenty-two.

But at least, in a group, Bokuto’s eyes are easily diverted. When he’s drunk, Bokuto’s eyes are unfocused and dimmed. Over LINE, Bokuto’s eyes cannot lock with Keiji’s at all.

Keiji reasons that if he can reinforce the strange and subtle distances that their adult lives already impose on them, he will never be forced to confirm the worst outcome: that when Bokuto turns his eyes toward Keiji, they will not possess with the same certainty and light as they had when they regarded Keiji all those years ago.

His eyes at the train station had been warm, and gold, and illuminated-- _but that had only been the shochu highballs and the bright interior of the train_ , Keiji's mind reasons.

Keiji tucks the sensation of the hand on his neck away from any further examination.

Maybe the compartment in Keiji’s heart isn’t the fortress he imagines it to be, or even the raw oyster at the izakaya. Maybe it's the popping fruit boba Suzumeda scolded Bokuto for stealing from her dessert, which she then shared with Keiji once Bokuto’s attention had swerved elsewhere. They had slid over his tongue, fragile and sweet, before catching between his molars; it only took the slightest bit of pressure before they burst, flooding his mouth with their flavor.

-

Despite the monsters on both sides of the net, above all, the Adlers-Jackals match belongs to Hinata and Kageyama. Keiji thanks them inwardly for making Udai’s long-suffering trip to Sendai worthwhile.

A warm wave of affection washes over Keiji when Hinata lingers behind to locate old friends from across Miyagi among the crowd. There are dozens, Keiji realizes; he follows Hinata’s spirited waves, and finds that all of them look at Hinata as if he is a time capsule to their youths too.

Hinata’s gaze skids over Keiji and Udai, then wrenches back. He breaks into one of his surprised, sunlit smiles. He calls out as he dashes to the edge of the stands, but the noise of the crowd eclipses his voice entirely.

Spectators turn to look at them, to seek out the lucky recipients of Shouyou Hinata’s radiant attention. Keiji and Udai stand and wave back.

Then Hinata bounds away, joining the group of Jackals waylaid by reporters--and hooks an arm around Bokuto’s, dragging him back toward them.

Oh. Oh no. Keiji had not wanted this.

Bokuto’s expression is delighted and curious, excited to join in whatever has gotten Hinata so lively. Hinata points into the audience to Keiji and Udai. Bokuto turns his face upward toward the second level seating.

The grin on his face freezes, then drops.

-

**From: Haruki Komi**

> [19:26] DUDE
> 
> [19:26] AKAASHI
> 
> [19:26] ARE YOU AT BOKUTO’S MATCH??? ??
> 
> [19:26] Saru said he saw you in an audience shot clapping to Bokuto’s serve www
> 
> [19:26] I mean we DID invite you to watch with US but this is good too, nice job man
> 
> [19:27] WWWW WHAT’S BOKUTO DOING NOW
> 
> [19:27] ISN’T IT YOUR JOB STOP HIM FROM DOING THIS KIND OF SHIT WWWW

-

**From: Yukie Shirofuku**

> [19:29] _[Image: A photo of a laptop screen, paused on a crowd shot of the Schweiden Adlers - MSBY Black Jackals game. A finger from out-of-frame points to a man in the second level seating.]_
> 
> [19:29] Akaashi-kun
> 
> [19:30] Are you in Sendai
> 
> [19:30] _[Image: A photo of a laptop screen, cropped to the top left corner of Wakatoshi Ushijima’s post-game interview. Black Jackals players #10 and #21 have their arms thrown around #12, whose foot is braced on the court barrier.]_
> 
> [19:30] And is Bokuto trying to climb into the stands to you

-

“Bokuto-san seems very excited to meet you, Udai-sensei.”

“ _What are you talking about_ , he’s clearly looking at _you_.”

“No, Bokuto-san is a very big fan of Zombie Knight Zomb’ish, perhaps he’s trying to ask you for an autograph—”

“ _Akaashi-san, for the love of god, please stop trying to hide behind me, he’s already seen you_.”

-

**From: Koutarou Bokuto**

> [19:37] AKAASHI
> 
> [19:37] ARE YOU HERE
> 
> [19:37] DON’T LEAVE YET
> 
> [19:37] DON’T LEAVE

-

**From: Shouyou Hinata**

> [19:38] Akaashi-san!! And Udai-san!! Hello!!! :waving hand: :waving hand:
> 
> [19:38] Bokuto-san asked me to give you directions for somewhere to meet, since I’m more familiar with the Sendai Gymnasium! Please give me a moment to type it all out!
> 
> [ _Shouyou Hinata is typing..._ ]

-

**From: Koutarou Bokuto**

> [19:38] DON’T LEAVE

-

In the summer of his first year of high school, Keiji began to catalog every weakness he could find in his team’s ace.

The other players had applauded him for it. “ _As his setter, Akaashi’s the one who’ll be responsible for handling his moods,”_ they had decided. “ _When it’s Bokuto-related, trust Akaashi to always have a contingency plan for us.”_

The list grew longer through the seasons. By the end of his second year, it had become a compendium so full of his frustrations that Keiji was embarrassed to admit its length even to himself.

_Because when you are sixteen, and you like a boy so much that it frightens you, you begin to notice every one of his faults in hopes to temper it,_ Keiji had realized later. _You list out every one of his irritating flaws, like a petition to your own heart._

_First, a terrible outcome: you still like him, despite it all._

_Then, the worst outcome: you still like him, because of it all._

-

Hinata’s instructions lead Keiji and Udai down a circuitous path of service corridors to which Osamu Miya grants access with his vendor’s badge.

“Thank you again for patronizin’ Onigiri Miya,” he says, grinning.

“Thank you, and please continue to consider opening a Tokyo branch,” Keiji replies.

Osamu Miya waves his goodbye as he rolls a handcart past them. “Well, in the meantime, you know where to find us the next time you feel like visitin’ Osaka, Mr. Owl Setter.”

Keiji frowns, but Osamu Miya’s back is already turned toward him. As he rounds a distant corner, Keiji hears a surprised, “Ah, good evenin’, congratulations, good game, yeah, I left ‘em right over there, make sure to tell ‘Tsumu that he owes me dinner.”

Before Keiji can prepare himself, a familiar silhouette appears in the sparsely lit hallway moving toward him at twice the pace of Osamu Miya, and Keiji suddenly does not know what to do with his hands. Udai--kindhearted and patient, studied in human behavior and accepting of his fate as a human buffer--steps forward to introduce himself.

“Congratulations, Bokuto-san, great game,” Udai says. “I’m Tenma Udai, I’m an artist at the magazine Akaashi-san works for. It’s nice to meet you.”

The momentum of his stride brings Bokuto a little too close, and Keiji immediately casts his eyes to Bokuto’s hands. As his gaze drags downward, he registers: the flush across his cheeks, a crooked jacket collar, damp hair pushed back by his sprint to meet them. Bokuto holds the first volume of Zombie Knight Zom’bish against his chest.

“I’m Koutarou Bokuto!” Bokuto blurts out. “Thank you! It’s nice to meet you too! I’m a big fan of Zom’bish!”

_Bokuto-san_ had _been trying to get Udai-sensei’s autograph,_ Keiji thinks with mild surprise.

“Sorry for making you wait so long, Captain Meian and Coach Foster yelled at me!” Bokuto says to both of them, breathless. “And Wan-san too, because Barnes had to carry me away! Barnes said he didn’t mind, though! And then I had to cool down, and shower, and…”

Bokuto trails off, following Keiji’s gaze to the manga volume in his hand. He jumps a little, as if he had forgotten that he was clutching it, then thrusts it in Udai’s direction.

“Wan-san said he wanted your autograph, please!” Bokuto says.

Udai glances at Keiji before accepting the tankoubon. “Wan-san?”

“Shion Inunaki-san,” Keiji clarifies. He unzips his backpack to fish out a pen, glad to have an excuse to avoid Bokuto’s stare. “The starting libero.”

“Right,” Udai says as he accepts Keiji’s ballpoint, then shuffles a few steps back. “I’m just gonna… hang back here. And sign this. Over here. Please don’t mind me.”

_The point of this all was that I needed you as a diversion,_ Keiji thinks forlornly as he watches Udai scoot farther and farther away. Keiji’s mind scrambles to compose a new strategy in the moments before he knows he must turn back.

“That was a good game, Bokuto-san, I’m sorry you got reprimanded,” Keiji says as neutrally as he can muster, at the same moment that Bokuto says, “ _Akaashi._ ”

Keiji’s heart catches between his teeth. He refuses to bite down. Bokuto says his name like he has always said it: as if he is rushing to get it out, and there are too many syllables in the way before he can say it again.

That, at least, has not changed.

“Your--your hair’s longer!” Bokuto declares, a little too loudly for such an empty hallway. Keiji furrows his brow in confusion. “And, uh, you’re wearing glasses today!”

“Yes, I worked late this week so my eyes are tired,” Keiji replies.

Now Bokuto’s gaze is cast nervously downward, and Keiji feels a bolt of unease. It’s unlike Bokuto to hesitate. He does not like being the reason for Bokuto’s discomfort.

“I, uh, like your wallpaper,” Bokuto finishes, a bit deflated.

Keiji looks to his hand where his phone screen is illuminated with a steady stream of LINE messages from their ex-teammates. “It’s just a photo of one of my houseplants.”

“What’s its name?”

“Koutarou-san,” Keiji answers reflexively.

Bokuto flinches, and Keiji watches the exertion-flush on Bokuto’s face spread to his ears. In a voice more strangled than Keiji has ever heard from him, Bokuto answers, “Yes?”

“ _Oh, no, Bokuto-san_ , that’s not what I meant, that’s the succulent’s name,” Keiji explains in a horrified rush. “Or, no, it’s not--I do not name my plants. That’s what Shirofuku-san calls it. She gave it to me. With the name already attached.”

“ _Yukippe_ ,” Bokuto says with feeling. Keiji examines the color crawling down Bokuto’s ears toward his surprisingly fair neck, uncertain of its meaning.

Then, before Keiji’s mind can complete its computations, Bokuto reaches out and wraps a hand around Keiji’s forearm. Keiji’s brain stutters to a halt.

_It’s enormous_ , is Keiji’s first coherent thought. _It’s very warm_ , is his second.

_I cannot think about it any further,_ is his third, and Keiji focuses on an exposed pipe on the distant ceiling while he shoves every subsequent thought to the back of his mind.

“Akaashi,” Bokuto says, squirming a bit, “Is anyone else here?”

“Not from Fukurodani, to my knowledge,” Akaashi replies. “I believe they’re all watching remotely.”

He chances a glance at Bokuto’s face, knowing that it’s angled away and there’s little risk of catching his eyes. Keiji expects to find disappointment--Bokuto is a creature who craves maximum attention, after all--but is surprised to see the faintest bit of pleasure in Bokuto’s rapid blinks.

“So you came by yourself?” Bokuto asks.

“I invited Udai-sensei.” Keiji throws a fleeting glance over his shoulder. Udai has absconded with the manga volume around some corner and is nowhere to be found. Bokuto’s hand is still encircling his forearm, heat radiating through his coat and sweater, thumb and index finger overlapping.

_That cannot be allowed,_ Keiji thinks.

“Hey, Akaashi,” Bokuto says toward the floor behind Keiji’s left foot, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

Keiji’s mind whirs back into its relentless motion. Producing excuses is one of its specialties, after all. _Because I bought the tickets too late for prior notice. Because our train arrived right before the game, and will leave too soon after to be worth bothering you for a meeting. Because I did not want to distract you from your match. Because I came for Hinata and Kageyama, not you. Because I am not important enough for you to meet with. Because I am an adult, and a coward, and I did not want to look into your eyes that have never learned how to hide anything._

“Was it because I upset you last time at the train station?”

Now Keiji turns his head; now Keiji meets Bokuto’s eyes, focused and lucid and immediate and luminous, for perhaps the first time in years.

Keiji bites down. The bubble pops. The oyster snaps open. The compartment opens, and empties out.

His mouth floods with sweetness.

-

He is sixteen, and he prays for this foolish boy with his glow-in-the-dark eyes and hand-annotated encyclopedia of flaws to call out his name one more time like Keiji is some sort of answer, even as his mind grips at the back of his shirt to insist, _Stop, this will only make it hurt all the more when it ends._

And he is nineteen, on the train from Hirakata to Tokyo once again, and he is certain that he can mask his heartbreak over a future composed only of goodbyes so long as he keeps shoving onigiri into his mouth; then Suzumeda gently presses her knee against his, and Shirofuku rests her head on his shoulder, and Keiji realizes that everything he is trying to shroud from his face is leaking out from his eyes.

And he is nearly twenty-three, and he is an adult with a job and houseplants and a credit card, and he has finally breached the compartment in his heart where he hides the memories he cannot bear to inspect for too long, for fear that his mind, as always, will calculate the very worst outcome.

He lets himself look.

-

Bokuto’s hand on his arm is firm. His eyes do not waver from Keiji’s, though his eyebrows knit together. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please don’t hide from me anymore.”

Keiji allows his mind to calculate the very worst outcomes. He must know, regardless of how mortifying or devastating they might be, before he allows the rest of himself to do anything reckless. He quickly lays them out--he thinks he has always half-known them:

_First, a terrible outcome: he loves you too._

_Then, a worse outcome: he does not._

_Then, the worst outcome: he loved you too, but does not anymore._

Keiji’s courage quails; then he remembers: he is an adult. He knows the difference between the likeliest result and the one he fears most.

He allows himself to study the eyes that he has avoided for so long, that have never felt the urge to hide anything from him since the moment they met. He slides his arm gently from the grip and pauses to curl his fingers around Bokuto’s wrist. The heartbeat he finds there flutters.

_Ah, well_ , Keiji thinks. _At worst, I already have a place to hide these memories if I’ve miscalculated._

Keiji steps forward, presses a palm to Bokuto’s cheek, and watches.

Bokuto’s round eyes widen, his jaw underneath Keiji’s hand tensing; Keiji holds his breath. Then, slowly, Bokuto exhales, and softens. He squints a little as he turns into the touch. Keiji feels the skin beneath his hand warm.

“I’m sorry for hiding, Bokuto-san. I will message you the next time I’m nearby,” Keiji says, voice coming out steady, somehow, despite everything. “And, if you’d like, please ask me to accompany you again when I don’t have work the next day.”

Bokuto freezes-- _How rare,_ Keiji thinks as he watches several thoughts dart back and forth across Bokuto’s expression--before he blurts out, “Can we get yakiniku together?”

“Sure,” Keiji replies.

“And boba afterwards?”

“That sounds nice, Bokuto-san.”

“And then Onigiri Miya.”

“Please don’t eat so much that you upset your stomach.”

Bokuto raises a hand to wrap around Keiji’s, warm and callused and familiar. He squeezes it, and presses it more firmly against his cheek.

After a moment, with a familiar dejected lilt crawling into his voice, Bokuto says, “I didn’t get to bring you any Onigiri Miya for your train today, though.”

Keiji feels sixteen again, paging through his Bokuto-san’s Weaknesses List for the best method to cheer him up. “That’s alright. I thought of you when I saw the Onigiri Miya pop-up stand, so Udai-sensei and I already bought several. It’s as if you bought them for me.”

Bokuto brightens a bit and smiles wide. “Akaashi, I could give you some of the ones that Myaa-Sam brought for the team!”

“You’ll be reprimanded again, Bokuto-san.”

“That’s okay!” Bokuto beams. “I’m used to it!”

“Please learn from your mistakes rather than become used to being reprimanded,” Keiji sighs, allowing himself a bit of the chiding tone he used to employ so often years ago. Bokuto smiles his fond, bright, impenetrable smile, even as Keiji lowers his hand from his face. Their fingertips link for a few moments between them before separating.

“I’m sorry to leave so abruptly, but I have to find Udai-sensei to catch our train,” Keiji says, adjusting his glasses as he takes a step back. His hand still smells like Bokuto’s soap.

Bokuto’s posture deflates a bit, but his eyes don’t leave Keiji’s face. Keiji fleetingly wonders if Bokuto has been trying to catch his eyes over the years as insistently as Keiji has been trying to avoid his.

As Keiji promised, he will no longer hide from them.

“I’m gonna be back in Tokyo for New Years,” Bokuto remarks hopefully, bouncing a bit on his heels. “After yakiniku and boba and stuff, can I see your houseplants too?”

Keiji bows, though he can’t suppress the small, pleased smile on his face. “I look forward to it, Bokuto-san.”

-

**From: Tenma Udai**

> [20:10] I left Inunaki-san’s signed tankoubon on the side table in the next hallway
> 
> [20:10] I can head to the station myself if you plan on staying

**From: Keiji Akaashi**

> [20:18] I apologize, I’m on my way now
> 
> [20:18] My meeting with Bokuto-san was quite short though, you could have waited for me to accompany you

**From: Tenma Udai**

> [20:19] No way, didn’t I tell you that it’s super awkward to be the odd one out when two people are catching up lol

* * *

Keiji checks his email one last time before bed and finds Aoki-sensei’s revised manuscript draft waiting in his inbox. He scans over the attachment, prepared to reply with a quick greenlight message, when he notices a note scribbled in the margins of the last page.

> _Akaashi-san--_
> 
> _I considered what you said before while applying your revisions. What do you think of having Elizabeth’s confession be the climax of this arc? I’d like her to play a bigger role in the next storyline, after all. We should start building up hints now if we want it to make sense._
> 
> _Let me know what you think! We can discuss it further in our next in-person meeting._
> 
> _Aoki_

-

> _Aoki-sensei,_
> 
> _Please proceed with this week’s chapter._
> 
> _Thank you for your hard work and your kind consideration of my comments. I look forward to discussing your ideas during our next meeting._
> 
> _Of course, I will continue to support Elizabeth-san as well._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _Keiji Akaashi_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter [@leeehama](https://twitter.com/leeehama) (main) or [@sparksandsalt](https://twitter.com/sparksandsalt) (anitwt)!  
> \- When I read Yachi’s “Sorry I haven’t been in touch” and saw the 1st years sitting separately from the rest of Karasuno (plus Udai sitting separately from Saeko and Akiteru), it hit me that, realistically, a lot of characters have probably drifted apart and are reuniting for the first time at the game  
> \- So I made myself sadder with BokuAka  
> \- (This is also the result of many relistens of Official Hige Dandism’s “Pretender” and Kenshi Yonezu ft. Masaki Suda’s “Gray and Blue”) (“Pretender” opens with “Even though I was always at your side, I was just in the audience”, like it just STARTS like that)  
> \- (For the record, I think every detail suggests that Akaashi and Bokuto ARE still close) (It’s just that it’s also possible to read everything as “ok but what if they’re NOT that close and just miss each other a lot”)  
> \- If an editor dragged me away from a day of work while I was making comics weekly, I would have 100% died. My thoughts and prayers go out to Tenma Udai (and potentially whoever his editor is, since it isn’t confirmed to be Akaashi lol)  
> \- I don’t know why I just threw in a bunch of older women looking out for Akaashi, maybe it reflects my desire to see him grow up healthy and strong


End file.
